Updated on
Summary The issue of passing 20th amendment in Senate has been postponed, indefinitely.
The Senate meeting convened on Friday by chairman senate, Farooq. H. Naek was to deliberate and finalize the issue of 20th amendment, which had already been approved by N.A, and was to be tabled by law minister Maula Bakhsh Chandio.However the issue was postponed over reservations and concerns of smaller political parties, expressed during the meeting of Senate’s house business advisory committee, and (even) the failure of opposition to register any conducive impact/interest over the issue.Sources have informed that smaller political parties had expressed their reservations over empowering Election commission beyond its mandate.Leader of the House, Syed Nayyar Hussain Bukhari proposed the postponement of the issue, since he wanted unanimous consensus over approval of the 20th amendment.Meanwhile senators voiced their strong resentments over failure of government to provide them with due development funds for their respective consistencies.During the Senate meeting on Friday, Senator Saleem Ullah and others voiced their strong protest over the issue, maintaining that government’s failure to provide development funds despite ‘reassurances’, encouraged the notion that it was deliberately delaying the issue until the retirement of current senators, so that future elected senators of PPP could be obliged , instead.The senators warned that they would not allow the approval of 20th amendment unless their demand for provision of developmental funds was realized.The chief whip of Senate, Hassam-uddin said that he was personally monitoring the issue, and expressed his dire hopes that the issue would be resolved by Monday, with development funds issued to senators.
